CHAPTER VII

PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY

WHAT WOULD BE NECESSARY TO COMPLETE IT

Any other deductions on this subject must come from the meditations of

the reader. To be of value in actual application such deductions

should be based upon study of modern combat, and that study cannot be

made from the accounts of historians alone.

The latter show the action of troop units only in a general way.

Action in detail and the individual action of the soldier remain

enveloped in a cloud of dust, in narratives as in reality. Yet these

questions must be studied, for the conditions they reveal should be

the basis of all fighting methods, past, present and future.

Where can data on these questions be found?

We have very few records portraying action as clearly as the report on

the engagement at the Pont de l'Hopital by Colonel Bugeaud. Such

stories in even greater detail, for the smallest detail has its

importance, secured from participants and witnesses who knew how to

see and knew how to remember, are what is necessary in a study of the

battle of to-day.

The number of killed, the kind and the character of wounds, often tell

more than the longest accounts. Sometimes they contradict them. We

want to know how man in general and the Frenchman in particular fought

yesterday. Under the pressure of danger, impelled by the instinct for

self-preservation, did he follow, make light of, or forget the methods

prescribed or recommended? Did he fight in the manner imposed upon

him, or in that indicated to him by his instinct or by his knowledge

of warfare?

When we have the answers to these questions we shall be very near to

knowing how he will conduct himself to-morrow, with and against

appliances far more destructive to-day than those of yesterday. Even

now, knowing that man is capable only of a given quantity of terror,

knowing that the moral effect of destruction is in proportion to the

force applied, we are able to predict that, to-morrow less than ever

will studied methods be practicable. Such methods are born of the

illusions of the field of fire and are opposed to the teachings of our

own experience. To-morrow, more than ever, will the individual valor

of the soldier and of small groups, be predominant. This valor is

secured by discipline.

The study of the past alone can give us a true perception of practical

methods, and enable us to see how the soldier will inevitably fight

to-morrow.

So instructed, so informed, we shall not be confused; because we shall

be able to prescribe beforehand such methods of fighting, such

organization, such dispositions as are seen to be inevitable. Such

prescriptions may even serve to regulate the inevitable. At any rate

they will serve to reduce the element of chance by enabling the

commanding officer to retain control as long as possible, and by

releasing the individual only at the moment when instinct dominates

him.

This is the only way to preserve discipline, which has a tendency to

go to pieces by tactical disobedience at the moment of greatest

necessity.

It should be understood that the prescriptions in question have to do

with dispositions before action; with methods of fighting, and not

with maneuvers.

Maneuvers are the movements of troops in the theater of action, and

they are the swift and ordered movement on the scene of action of

tactical units of all sizes. They do not constitute action. Action

follows them.

Confusion in many minds between maneuvers and action brings about

doubt and mistrust of our regulation drills. These are good, very good

as far as they go, inasmuch as they give methods of executing all

movements, of taking all possible formations with rapidity and good

order.

To change them, to discuss them, does not advance the question one

bit. They do not affect the problem of positive action. Its solution

lies in the study of what took place yesterday, from which, alone, it

is possible to deduce what will happen to-morrow.

This study must be made, and its result set forth. Each leader, whose

worth and authority has been tested in war and recognized by armies,

has done something of the sort. Of each of these even might be said,

"He knew the soldier; he knew how to make use of him."

The Romans, too, had this knowledge. They obtained it from continuous

experience and profound reflexion thereon.

Experience is not continuous to-day. It must be carefully gathered.

Study of it should be careful and the results should stimulate

reflexion, especially in men of experience. Extremes meet in many

things. In ancient times at the point of the pike and sword, armies

have conquered similar armies twice their size. Who knows if, in these

days of perfected long-range arms of destruction, a small force might

not secure, by a happy combination of good sense or genius with morale

and appliances, these same heroic victories over a greater force

similarly armed?[33]

In spite of the statements of Napoleon I, his assumption that victory

is always on the side of the strongest battalions was costly.

PART II. MODERN BATTLE

CHAPTER I

GENERAL DISCUSSION

1. Ancient and Modern Battle

I have heard philosophers reproached for studying too exclusively man

in general and neglecting the race, the country, the era, so that

their studies of him offer little of real social or political value.

The opposite criticism can be made of military men of all countries.

They are always eager to expound traditional tactics and organization

suitable to the particular character of their race, always the bravest

of all races. They fail to consider as a factor in the problem, man

confronted by danger. Facts are incredibly different from all

theories. Perhaps in this time of military reorganization it would not

be out of place to make a study of man in battle and of battle itself.

The art of war is subjected to many modifications by industrial and

scientific progress. But one thing does not change, the heart of man.

In the last analysis, success in battle is a matter of morale. In all

matters which pertain to an army, organization, discipline and

tactics, the human heart in the supreme moment of battle is the basic

factor. It is rarely taken into account; and often strange errors are

the result. Witness the carbine, an accurate and long range weapon,

which has never given the service expected of it, because it was used

mechanically without considering the human heart. We must consider it!

With improvement in weapons, the power of destruction increases, the

moral effect of such weapons increases, and courage to face them

becomes rarer. Man does not, cannot change. What should increase with

the power of material is the strength of organization, the unity of

the fighting machine. Yet these are most neglected. A million men at

maneuvers are useless, if a sane and reasoned organization does not

assure their discipline, and thereby their reliability, that is, their

courage in action.

Four brave men who do not know each other will not dare to attack a

lion. Four less brave, but knowing each other well, sure of their

reliability and consequently of mutual aid, will attack resolutely.

There is the science of the organization of armies in a nutshell.

At any time a new invention may assure victory. Granted. But

practicable weapons are not invented every day, and nations quickly

put themselves on the same footing as regards armament. The

determining factor, leaving aside generals of genius, and luck, is the

quality of troops, that is, the organization that best assures their

esprit, their reliability, their confidence, their unity. Troops, in

this sense, means soldiers. Soldiers, no matter how well drilled, who

are assembled haphazard into companies and battalions will never have,

have never had, that entire unity which is born of mutual

acquaintanceship.

In studying ancient battle, we have seen what a terrible thing battle

is. We have seen that man will not really fight except under

disciplinary pressure. Even before having studied modern battle, we

know that the only real armies are those to which a well thought out

and rational organization gives unity throughout battle. The

destructive power of improved firearms becomes greater. Battle becomes

more open, hindering supervision, passing beyond the vision of the

commander and even of subordinate officers. In the same degree, unity

should be strengthened. The organization which assures unity of the

combatants should be better thought out and more rational. The power

of arms increases, man and his weaknesses remain the same. What good

is an army of two hundred thousand men of whom only one-half really

fight, while the other one hundred thousand disappear in a hundred

ways? Better to have one hundred thousand who can be counted upon.

The purpose of discipline is to make men fight in spite of themselves.

No army is worthy of the name without discipline. There is no army at

all without organization, and all organization is defective which

neglects any means to strengthen the unity of combatants. Methods

cannot be identical. Draconian discipline does not fit our customs.

Discipline must be a state of mind, a social institution based on the

salient virtues and defects of the nation.

Discipline cannot be secured or created in a day. It is an

institution, a tradition. The commander must have confidence in his

right to command. He must be accustomed to command and proud to

command. This is what strengthens discipline in armies commanded by an

aristocracy in certain countries.

The Prussians do not neglect the homogeneity and consequent unity of

organization. They recognize its value. Hessian regiments are

composed, the first year, of one-third Hessians, two-thirds Prussians,

to control the racial tendencies of troops of a recently annexed

country; the second year, of two-thirds Hessians, one-third Prussians;

the third year, all Hessians with their own officers.

The Americans have shown us what happens in modern battle to large

armies without cohesion. With them the lack of discipline and

organization has had the inevitable result. Battle has been between

hidden skirmishers, at long distance, and has lasted for days, until

some faulty movement, perhaps a moral exhaustion, has caused one or

the other of the opposing forces to give way.

In this American War, the melees of Agincourt are said to have

reappeared, which merely means a melee of fugitives. But less than

ever has there been close combat.

To fight from a distance is instinctive in man. From the first day he

has worked to this end, and he continues to do so. It was thought that

with long range weapons close combat might return. On the contrary

troops keep further off before its effects.

The primitive man, the Arab, is instability incarnate. A breath, a

nothing, governs him at each instant in war. The civilized man, in

war, which is opposed to civilization, returns naturally to his first

instincts.

With the Arab war remains a matter of agility and cunning. Hunting is

his principal pastime and the pursuit of wild beasts teaches the

pursuit of man. General Daumas depicts Arabs as cavaliers. What more

chivalrous warfare than the night surprise and sack of a camp! Empty

words!!

It is commonly said that modern war is the most recondite of things,

requiring experts. War, so long as man risks his skin in it, will

always be a matter of instinct.

Ancient battle resembled drill. There is no such resemblance in modern

battle. This greatly disconcerts both officers and soldiers.

Ancient battles were picnics, for the victors, who lost nobody. Not so

to-day.

Artillery played no part in ancient battle.

The invention of firearms has diminished losses in battle. The

improvement of firearms continues to diminish losses. This looks like

a paradox. But statistics prove it. Nor is it unreasonable.

Does war become deadlier with the improvement of weapons? Not at all.

Man is capable of standing before a certain amount of terror; beyond

that he flees from battle. The battle of Pharsalus lasted some four

hours. Caesar broke his camp, which is done in the morning; then the

formation for battle; then the battle, etc. And he says that his

troops were tired, the battle having lasted up to noon. This indicates

that he considered it long.

For the middle ages, consult Froissart. The knights in the Battle of

the Thirty were armed for battle on foot which they preferred in a

serious affair, that is to say in a restricted space. There was a

halt, a rest in the combat, when the two parties became exhausted. The

Bretons, at this rest, were twenty-five against thirty. The battle had

lasted up to exhaustion without loss by the English! Without Montauban

the battle would have been terminated by complete and mutual

exhaustion and without further losses. For the greater the fatigue,

the less strength remained for piercing the armor. Montauban was at

the same time felon and hero; felon because he did a thing not

permitted by the code of combat; hero, because, if the Bretons had not

ably profited by the disorder, he would have been killed when he

entered the English formation alone. At the end of the contest the

Bretons had four killed, the English eight. Four of the killed were

overcome by their armor.

Explain how, under Turenne, men held much longer under fire than

to-day. It is perfectly simple. Man is capable of standing before only

a certain amount of terror. To-day there must be swallowed in five

minutes what took an hour under Turenne. An example will be given.

With the present arms, whose usage is generally known, the instruction

of the soldier is of little importance. It does not make the soldier.

Take as an example the case of the peasants of the Vendee. Their unity

and not individual instruction made them soldiers, whose value could

not be denied. Such unity was natural in people of the same village of

the same commune, led in battle by their own lords, their own priests,

etc.

The greater the perfection of weapons, the more dreadful becomes

modern battle, and discipline becomes more difficult to maintain.

The less mobile the troops, the deadlier are battles. Bayonet attacks

are not so easily made to-day, and morale consequently is less

affected, man fearing man more than death. Astonishing losses seem to

have been suffered without breaking by Turenne's armies. Were the

casualty reports submitted by the captains of those days correct?

Frederick liked to say that three men behind the enemy were worth more

than fifty in front of him, for moral effect. The field of action

to-day is more extensive than in Frederick's time. Battle is delivered

on more accidented terrain, as armies with great mobility do not need

any particular terrain to fight on.

The nature of ancient arms required close order. Modern arms require

open order, and they are at the same time of such terrible power that

against them too often discipline is broken. What is the solution?

Have your combatants opened out? Have them well acquainted with each

other so as to have unity. Have reserves to threaten with, held with

an iron hand.

Modern weapons have a terrible effect and are almost unbearable by the

nervous system. Who can say that he has not been frightened in battle?

Discipline in battle becomes the more necessary as the ranks become

more open, and the material cohesion of the ranks not giving

confidence, it must spring from a knowledge of comrades, and a trust

in officers, who must always be present and seen. What man to-day

advances with the confidence that rigid discipline and pride in

himself gave the Roman soldier, even though the contest is no longer

with man but with fate?

To-day the artillery is effective at great distances. There is much

liberty of movement for the different arms. The apparent liaison

between arms is lessened. This has its influence on morale. There is

another advantage in reliable troops, in that they can be extended

more widely, and will consequently suffer smaller losses and be in

better morale for close conflict.

The further off one is, the more difficult it is to judge of the

terrain. Consequently the greater is the necessity for scouting, for

reconnoitering the terrain by skirmishers. This is something that the

Duke of Gramont forgot at Nordlingen, and which is often forgotten;

but it constitutes another important reason for the use of

skirmishers.

The formation in rank is a disciplinary measure against the weakness

of man in the face of danger. This weakness is greater to-day in that

the moral action of weapons is more powerful, and that the material

rank has the inherent lack of cohesion of open order. However, open

order is necessary to economize losses and permit the use of weapons.

Thus to-day there is greater necessity than ever for the rank, that is

for discipline, not for the geometrical rank. It is at the same time

more necessary and doubly difficult to attain.

In ancient battle unity existed, at least with the Greeks and the

Romans. The soldier was known to his officer and comrades; they saw

that he fought.

In modern armies where losses are as great for the victor as for the

vanquished, the soldier must more often be replaced. In ancient battle

the victor had no losses. To-day the soldier is often unknown to his

comrades. He is lost in the smoke, the dispersion, the confusion of

battle. He seems to fight alone. Unity is no longer insured by mutual

surveillance. A man falls, and disappears. Who knows whether it was a

bullet or the fear of advancing further that struck him! The ancient

combatant was never struck by an invisible weapon and could not fall

in this way. The more difficult surveillance, the more necessary

becomes the individuality of companies, sections, squads. Not the

least of their boasts should be their ability to stand a roll call at

all times.

The ancients often avoided hand to hand conflict, so terrible were its

consequences. In modern combat, there never is hand to hand conflict

if one stands fast.

From day to day close combat tends to disappear. It is replaced by

fire action; above all by the moral action of maneuvers. Dispersion

brings us back to the necessity for the unity which was an absolute

necessity in ancient battle.

Strategy is a game. The first strategist, long before Napoleon, was

Horace with his three enemies.

The size of the battle field permits, less than ever, holding units

together; the role of the general is much more difficult: many more

chances are left to fate. Thus the greater the necessity for the best

troops who know best their trade, who are most dependable and of

greatest fortitude. To diminish the effect of luck, it is necessary to

hold longer, to wait for help from a distance. Battles resolve

themselves into battles of soldiers. The final decision is more

difficult to obtain. There is a strange similarity in battle at one

league to battle at two paces. The value of the soldier is the

essential element of success. Let us strengthen the soldier by unity.

Battle has more importance than ever. Communication facilities such as

the telegraph, concentration facilities such as the railroad, render

more difficult such strategic surprises as Ulm and Jena. The whole

forces of a country can thus be united. So united, defeat becomes

irreparable, disorganization greater and more rapid.

In modern combat the melee really exists more than in ancient battle.

This appears paradoxical. It is true nevertheless of the melee taken

in the sense of a mixed up affair where it is infinitely difficult to

see clearly.

Man, in the combat of our days, is a man who, hardly knowing how to

swim, is suddenly thrown into the sea.

The good quality of troops will more than ever secure victory.

As to the comparative value of troops with cohesion and of new troops,

look at the Zouaves of the Guard or the Grenadiers at Magenta, and the

55th at Solferino. [34]

Nothing should be neglected to make the battle order stronger, man

stronger.

2. Moral Elements in Battle

When, in complete security, after dinner, in full physical and moral

contentment, men consider war and battle they are animated by a noble

ardor that has nothing in common with reality. How many of them,

however, even at that moment, would be ready to risk their lives? But

oblige them to march for days and weeks to arrive at the battle

ground, and on the day of battle oblige them to wait minutes, hours,

to deliver it. If they were honest they would testify how much the

physical fatigue and the mental anguish that precede action have

lowered their morale, how much less eager to fight they are than a

month before, when they arose from the table in a generous mood.

Man's heart is as changeable as fortune. Man shrinks back, apprehends

danger in any effort in which he does not foresee success. There are

some isolated characters of an iron temper, who resist the tendency;

but they are carried away by the great majority (Bismarck).

Examples show that if a withdrawal is forced, the army is discouraged

and takes flight (Frederick). The brave heart does not change.

Real bravery, inspired by devotion to duty, does not know panic and is

always the same. The bravery sprung from hot blood pleases the

Frenchman more. He understands it, it appeals to his vanity; it is a

characteristic of his nature. But it is passing; it fails him at

times, especially when there is nothing for him to gain in doing his

duty.

The Turks are full of ardor in the advance. They carry their officers

with them. But they retreat with the same facility, abandoning their

officers.

Mediocre troops like to be led by their shepherds. Reliable troops

like to be directed, with their directors alongside of them or behind.

With the former the general must be the leader on horseback; with the

latter, the manager.

Warnery did not like officers to head a charge. He thought it useless

to have them killed before the others. He did not place them in front

and his cavalry was good.

General Leboeuf did not favor the proposed advance into battle with

platoon leaders in front of the center of their platoons. The fear

exists that the fall of the captain will demoralize the rest. What is

the solution? Leboeuf must have known that if the officer is not in

front of his command, it will advance less confidently, that, with us,

all officers are almost always in advance. Practice is stronger than

any theory. Therefore fit theories to it. In column, put the chiefs of

platoon on the flank where they can see clearly.

Frightfulness! Witness the Turks in the Polish wars. What gave power

to the Turks in their wars with Poland was not so much their real

strength as their ferocity. They massacred all who resisted; they

massacred without the excuse of resistance. Terror preceded them,

breaking down the courage of their enemies. The necessity to win or to

submit to extreme peril brought about cowardice and submission, for

fear of being conquered.

Turenne said, "You tremble, body...." The instinct of

self-preservation can then make the strongest tremble. But they are

strong enough to overcome their emotion, the fear of advancing,

without even losing their heads or their coolness. Fear with them

never becomes terror; it is forgotten in the activities of command. He

who does not feel strong enough to keep his heart from ever being

gripped by terror, should never think of becoming an officer.

The soldiers themselves have emotion. The sense of duty, discipline,

pride, the example of their officers and above all their coolness,

sustain them and prevent their fear from becoming terror. Their

emotion never allows them to sight, or to more than approximately

adjust their fire. Often they fire into the air. Cromwell knew this

very well, dependable as his troops were, when he said, "Put your

trust in God and aim at their shoe laces."

What is too true is that bravery often does not at all exclude

cowardice, horrible devices to secure personal safety, infamous

conduct.

The Romans were not mighty men, but men of discipline and obstinacy.

We have no idea of the Roman military mind, so entirely different from

ours. A Roman general who had as little coolness as we have would have

been lost. We have incentives in decorations and medals that would

have made a Roman soldier run the gauntlet.

How many men before a lion, have the courage to look him in the face,

to think of and put into practice measures of self-defense? In war

when terror has seized you, as experience has shown it often does, you

are as before a lion. You fly trembling and let yourself be eaten up.

Are there so few really brave men among so many soldiers? Alas, yes!

Gideon was lucky to find three hundred in thirty thousand.

Napoleon said, "Two Mamelukes held three Frenchmen; but one hundred

French cavalry did not fear the same number of Mamelukes; three

hundred vanquished the same number; one thousand French beat fifteen

hundred Mamelukes. Such was the influence of tactics, order and

maneuver." In ordinary language, such was the great moral influence of

unity, established by discipline and made possible and effective in

battle by organization and mutual support. With unity and sensible

formation men of an individual value one-third less beat those who

were individually their betters. That is the essential, must be the

essential, point in the organization of an army. On reflection, this

simple statement of Napoleon's seems to contain the whole of battle

morale. Make the enemy believe that support is lacking; isolate; cut

off, flank, turn, in a thousand ways make his men believe themselves

isolated. Isolate in like manner his squadrons, battalions, brigades

and divisions; and victory is yours. If, on account of bad

organization, he does not anticipate mutual support, there is no need

of such maneuver; the attack is enough.

Some men, such as Orientals, Chinese, Tartars, Mongols do not fear

death. They are resigned to it at all times. Why is it that they can

not stand before the armies of the western people? It is lack of

organization. The instinct of self-preservation which at the last

moment dominates them utterly, is not opposed by discipline. We have

often seen fanatic eastern peoples, implicitly believing that death in

battle means a happy and glorious resurrection, superior in numbers,

give way before discipline. If attacked confidently, they are crushed

by their own weight. In close combat the dagger is better than the

bayonet, but instinct is too strong for such people.

What makes the soldier capable of obedience and direction in action,

is the sense of discipline. This includes: respect for and confidence

in his chiefs; confidence in his comrades and fear of their reproaches

and retaliation if he abandons them in danger; his desire to go where

others do without trembling more than they; in a word, the whole of

esprit de corps. Organization only can produce these characteristics.

Four men equal a lion.

Note the army organizations and tactical formations on paper are

always determined from the mechanical point of view, neglecting the

essential coefficient, that of morale. They are almost always wrong.

Esprit de corps is secured in war. But war becomes shorter and shorter

and more and more violent. Consequently, secure esprit de corps in

advance.

Mental acquaintanceship is not enough to make a good organization. A

good general esprit is needed. All must work for battle and not merely

live, quietly going through with drills without understanding their

application. Once a man knows how to use his weapon and obey all

commands there is needed only occasional drill to brush up those who

have forgotten. Marches and battle maneuvers are what is needed.

The technical training of the soldier is not the most difficult. It is

necessary for him to know how to use and take care of his weapon; to

know how to move to the right and to the left, forward, to the rear,

at command, to charge and to march with full pack. But this does not

make the soldier. The Vendeans, who knew little of this, were tough

soldiers.

It is absolutely necessary to change the instruction, to reduce it to

the necessary minimum and to cut out all the superfluities with which

peacetime laborers overload it each year. To know the essential well

is better than having some knowledge of a lot of things, many of them

useless. Teach this the first year, that the second, but the essential

from the beginning! Also instruction should be simple to avoid the

mental fatigue of long drills that disgust everybody.

Here is a significant sentence in Colonel Borbstaed's enumeration

of the reasons for Prussian victory over the Austrians in 1866, "It

was ... because each man, being trained, knew how to act promptly and

confidently in all phases of battle." This is a fact.

To be held in a building, at every minute of the day to have every

movement, every attitude under a not too intelligent surveillance is

indeed to be harried. This incessant surveillance weakens the morale

of both the watched and the watcher. What is the reason for this

incessant surveillance which has long since exceeded shipboard

surveillance? Was not that strict enough?

3. Material and Moral Effect

The effect of an army, of one organization on another, is at the same

time material and moral. The material effect of an organization is in

its power to destroy, the moral effect in the fear that it inspires.

In battle, two moral forces, even more than two material forces, are

in conflict. The stronger conquers. The victor has often lost by fire

more than the vanquished. Moral effect does not come entirely from

destructive power, real and effective as it may be. It comes, above

all, from its presumed, threatening power, present in the form of

reserves threatening to renew the battle, of troops that appear on the

flank, even of a determined frontal attack.

Material effect is greater as instruments are better (weapons, mounts,

etc.), as the men know better how to use them, and as the men are more

numerous and stronger, so that in case of success they can carry on

longer.

With equal or even inferior power of destruction he will win who has

the resolution to advance, who by his formations and maneuvers can

continually threaten his adversary with a new phase of material

action, who, in a word has the moral ascendancy. Moral effect inspires

fear. Fear must be changed to terror in order to vanquish.

When confidence is placed in superiority of material means, valuable

as they are against an enemy at a distance, it may be betrayed by the

actions of the enemy. If he closes with you in spite of your

superiority in means of destruction, the morale of the enemy mounts

with the loss of your confidence. His morale dominates yours. You

flee. Entrenched troops give way in this manner.

At Pharsalus, Pompey and his army counted on a cavalry corps turning

and taking Caesar in the rear. In addition Pompey's army was twice as

numerous. Caesar parried the blow, and his enemy, who saw the failure

of the means of action he counted on, was demoralized, beaten, lost

fifteen thousand men put to the sword (while Caesar lost only two

hundred) and as many prisoners.

Even by advancing you affect the morale of the enemy. But your object

is to dominate him and make him retreat before your ascendancy, and it

is certain that everything that diminishes the enemy's morale adds to

your resolution in advancing. Adopt then a formation which permits

your destructive agency, your skirmishers, to help you throughout by

their material action and to this degree diminish that of the enemy.

Armor, in diminishing the material effect that can be suffered,

diminishes the dominating moral effect of fear. It is easy to

understand how much armor adds to the moral effect of cavalry action,

at the critical moment. You feel that thanks to his armor the enemy

will succeed in getting to you.

It is to be noted that when a body actually awaits the attack of

another up to bayonet distance (something extraordinarily rare), and

the attacking troop does not falter, the first does not defend itself.

This is the massacre of ancient battle.

Against unimaginative men, who retain some coolness and consequently

the faculty of reasoning in danger, moral effect will be as material

effect. The mere act of attack does not completely succeed against

such troops. (Witness battles in Spain and Waterloo). It is necessary

to destroy them, and we are better at this than they by our aptitude

in the use of skirmishers and above all in the mad dash of our

cavalry. But the cavalry must not be treated, until it comes to so

consider itself, as a precious jewel which must be guarded against

injury. There should be little of it, but it must be good.

"Seek and ye shall find" not the ideal but the best method that

exists. In maneuvers skirmishers, who have some effect, are returned

to ranks to execute fire in two ranks which never killed anybody. Why

not put your skirmishers in advance? Why sound trumpet calls which

they neither hear nor understand? That they do not is fortunate, for

each captain has a different call sounded. Example: at Alma, the

retreat, etc. [35]

The great superiority of Roman tactics lay in their constant endeavor

to cooerdinate physical and moral effect. Moral effect passes; finally

one sees that the enemy is not so terrible as he appeared to be.

Physical effect does not. The Greeks tried to dominate. The Romans

preferred to kill, and kill they did. They followed thereby the better

method. Their moral effect was aided by their reliable and deadly

swords.

What moral force is worth to a nation at war is shown by examples.

Pichegru played the traitor; this had great influence at home and we

were beaten. Napoleon came back; victory returned with him.

But at that we can do nothing without good troops, not even with a

Napoleon. Witness Turenne's army after his death. It remained

excellent in spite of conflict between and the inefficiency of its two

leaders. Note the defensive retreat across the Rhine; the regiment in

Champagne attacked in front by infantry and taken in the rear by

cavalry. One of the prettiest feats of the art of war.

In modern battle, which is delivered with combatants so far apart, man

has come to have a horror of man. He comes to hand to hand fighting

only to defend his body or if forced to it by some fortuitous

encounter. More than that! It may be said that he seeks to catch the

fugitive only for fear that he will turn and fight.

Guilbert says that shock actions are infinitely rare. Here, infinity

is taken in its exact mathematical sense. Guilbert reduces to nothing,

by deductions from practical examples, the mathematical theory of the

shock of one massed body on another. Indeed the physical impulse is

nothing. The moral impulse which estimates the attacker is everything.

The moral impulse lies in the perception by the enemy of the

resolution that animates you. They say that the battle of Amstetten

was the only one in which a line actually waited for the shock of

another line charging with the bayonets. Even then the Russians gave

way before the moral and not before the physical impulse. They were

already disconcerted, wavering, worried, hesitant, vacillating, when

the blow fell. They waited long enough to receive bayonet thrusts,

even blows with the rifle (in the back, as at Inkermann). [36]

This done, they fled. He who calm and strong of heart awaits his

enemy, has all the advantage of fire. But the moral impulse of the

assailant demoralizes the assailed. He is frightened; he sets his

sight no longer; he does not even aim his piece. His lines are broken

without defense, unless indeed his cavalry, waiting halted, horsemen a

meter apart and in two ranks, does not break first and destroy all

formation.

With good troops on both sides, if an attack is not prepared, there is

every reason to believe that it will fail. The attacking troops suffer

more, materially, than the defenders. The latter are in better order,

fresh, while the assailants are in disorder and already have suffered

a loss of morale under a certain amount of punishment. The moral

superiority given by the offensive movement may be more than

compensated by the good order and integrity of the defenders, when the

assailants have suffered losses. The slightest reaction by the defense

may demoralize the attack. This is the secret of the success of the

British infantry in Spain, and not their fire by rank, which was as

ineffective with them as with us.

The more confidence one has in his methods of attack or defense, the

more disconcerted he is to see them at some time incapable of stopping

the enemy. The effect of the present improved fire arm is still

limited, with the present organization and use of riflemen, to point

blank ranges. It follows that bayonet charges (where bayonet thrusts

never occur), otherwise attacks under fire, will have an increasing

value, and that victory will be his who secures most order and

determined dash. With these two qualities, too much neglected with us,

with willingness, with intelligence enough to keep a firm hold on

troops in immediate support, we may hope to take and to hold what we

take. Do not then neglect destructive effort before using moral

effect. Use skirmishers up to the last moment. Otherwise no attack can

succeed. It is true it is haphazard fire, nevertheless it is effective

because of its volume.

This moral effect must be a terrible thing. A body advances to meet

another. The defender has only to remain calm, ready to aim, each man

pitted against a man before him. The attacking body comes within

deadly range. Whether or not it halts to fire, it will be a target for

the other body which awaits it, calm, ready, sure of its effect. The

whole first rank of the assailant falls, smashed. The remainder,

little encouraged by their reception, disperse automatically or before

the least indication of an advance on them. Is this what happens? Not

at all! The moral effect of the assault worries the defenders. They

fire in the air if at all. They disperse immediately before the

assailants who are even encouraged by this fire now that it is over.

It quickens them in order to avoid a second salvo.

It is said by those who fought them in Spain and at Waterloo that the

British are capable of the necessary coolness. I doubt it

nevertheless. After firing, they made swift attacks. If they had not,

they might have fled. Anyhow the English are stolid folks, with little

imagination, who try to be logical in all things. The French with

their nervous irritability, their lively imagination, are incapable of

such a defense.

Anybody who thinks that he could stand under a second fire is a man

without any idea of battle. (Prince de Ligne).

Modern history furnishes us with no examples of stonewall troops who

can neither be shaken nor driven back, who stand patiently the

heaviest fire, yet who retire precipitately when the general orders

the retreat. (Bismarck).

Cavalry maneuvers, like those of infantry, are threats. The most

threatening win. The formation in ranks is a threat, and more than a

threat. A force engaged is out of the hand of its commander. I know, I

see what it does, what it is capable of. It acts; I can estimate the

effect of its action. But a force in formation is in hand; I know it

is there, I see it, feel it. It may be used in any direction. I feel

instinctively that it alone can surely reach me, take me on the right,

on the left, throw itself into a gap, turn me. It troubles me,

threatens me. Where is the threatened blow going to fall?

The formation in ranks is a serious threat, which may at any moment be

put into effect. It awes one in a terrible fashion. In the heat of

battle, formed troops do more to secure victory than do those actively

engaged. This is true, whether such a body actually exists or whether

it exists only in the imagination of the enemy. In an indecisive

battle, he wins who can show, and merely show, battalions and

squadrons in hand. They inspire the fear of the unknown.

From the taking of the entrenchments at Fribourg up to the engagement

at the bridge of Arcola, up to Solferino, there occur a multitude of

deeds of valor, of positions taken by frontal attack, which deceive

every one, generals as well as civilians, and which always cause the

same mistakes to be made. It is time to teach these folks that the

entrenchments at Fribourg were not won by frontal attack, nor was the

bridge of Arcola (see the correspondence of Napoleon I), nor was

Solferino.

Lieutenant Hercule took fifty cavalry through Alpon, ten kilometers on

the flank of the Austrians at Arcola, and the position that held us up

for three days, was evacuated. The evacuation was the result of

strategic, if not of tactical, moral effect. General or soldier, man

is the same.

Demonstrations should be made at greater or less distance, according

to the morale of the enemy. That is to say, battle methods vary with

the enemy, and an appropriate method should be employed in each

individual case.

We have treated and shall treat only of the infantryman. In ancient as

in modern battle, he is the one who suffers most. In ancient battle,

if he is defeated, he remains because of his slowness at the mercy of

the victor. In modern battle the mounted man moves swiftly through

danger, the infantryman has to walk. He even has to halt in danger,

often and for long periods of time. He who knows the morale of the

infantryman, which is put to the hardest proof, knows the morale of

all the combatants.

4. The Theory of Strong Battalions

To-day, numbers are considered the essential. Napoleon had this

tendency (note his strength reports). The Romans did not pay so much

attention to it. What they paid most attention to was to seeing that

everybody fought. We assume that all the personnel present with an

army, with a division, with a regiment on the day of battle, fights.

Right there is the error.

The theory of strong battalions is a shameful theory. It does not

reckon on courage but on the amount of human flesh. It is a reflection

on the soul. Great and small orators, all who speak of military

matters to-day, talk only of masses. War is waged by enormous masses,

etc. In the masses, man as an individual disappears, the number only

is seen. Quality is forgotten, and yet to-day as always, quality alone

produces real effect. The Prussians conquered at Sadowa with made

soldiers, united, accustomed to discipline. Such soldiers can be made

in three or four years now, for the material training of the soldier

is not indeed so difficult.

Caesar had legions that he found unseasoned, not yet dependable, which

had been formed for nine years.

Austria was beaten because her troops were of poor quality, because

they were conscripts.

Our projected organization will give us four hundred thousand good

soldiers. But all our reserves will be without cohesion, if they are

thrown into this or that organization on the eve of battle. At a

distance, numbers of troops without cohesion may be impressive, but

close up they are reduced to fifty or twenty-five per cent. who really

fight. Wagram was not too well executed. It illustrated desperate

efforts that had for once a moral effect on an impressionable enemy.

But for once only. Would they succeed again?

The Cimbrians gave an example [37] and man has not changed. Who to-day is

braver than they were? And they did not have to face artillery, nor

rifles.

Originally Napoleon found as an instrument, an army with good battle

methods, and in his best battles, combat followed these methods. He

himself prescribed, at least so they say, for he misrepresented at

Saint Helena, the methods used at Wagram, at Eylau, at Waterloo, and

engaged enormous masses of infantry which did not give material

effect. But it involved a frightful loss of men and a disorder that,

after they had once been unleashed, did not permit of the rallying and

reemployment that day of the troops engaged. This was a barbaric

method, according to the Romans, amateurish, if we may say such a

thing of such a man; a method which could not be used against

experienced and well trained troops such as d'Erlon's corps at

Waterloo. It proved disastrous.

Napoleon looked only at the result to be attained. When his

impatience, or perhaps the lack of experience and knowledge in his

officers and soldiers, forbade his continued use of real attack

tactics, he completely sacrificed the material effect of infantry and

even that of cavalry to the moral effect of masses. The personnel of

his armies was too changing. In ancient battle victory cost much less

than with modern armies, and the same soldiers remained longer in

ranks. At the end of his campaigns, when he had soldiers sixty years

old, Alexander had lost only seven hundred men by the sword.

Napoleon's system is more practicable with the Russians, who naturally

group together, mass up, but it is not the most effective. Note the

mass formation at Inkermann. [38]

What did Napoleon I do? He reduced the role of man in battle, and

depended instead on formed masses. We have not such magnificent

material.

Infantry and cavalry masses showed, toward the end of the Empire, a

tactical degeneracy resulting from the wearing down of their elements

and the consequent lowering of standards of morale and training. But

since the allies had recognized and adopted our methods, Napoleon

really had a reason for trying something so old that it was new to

secure that surprise which will give victory once. It can give victory

only once however, tried again surprise will be lacking. This was sort

of a desperate method which Napoleon's supremacy allowed him to adopt

when he saw his prestige waning.

When misfortune and lack of cannon fodder oppressed him, Napoleon

became again the practical man not blinded by his supremacy. His

entire good sense, his genius, overcame the madness to conquer at all

price, and we have his campaign of 1814.

General Ambert says: "Without military traditions, almost without a

command, these confused masses (the American armies of the Civil War)

struck as men struck at Agincourt and Crecy." At Agincourt and Crecy,

we struck very little, but were struck a lot. These battles were great

slaughters of Frenchmen, by English and other Frenchmen, who did not

greatly suffer themselves. In what, except in disorder, did the

American battles resemble these butcheries with the knife? The

Americans were engaged as skirmishers at a distance of leagues. In

seeking a resemblance the general has been carried away by the mania

for phrase-making.

Victory is always for the strong battalions. This is true. If sixty

determined men can rout a battalion, these sixty must be found.

Perhaps only as many will be found as the enemy has battalions (Note

Gideon's proportion of three hundred to thirty thousand of one to one

hundred.) Perhaps it would be far and away better, under these

circumstances, to fight at night.

5. Combat Methods

Ancient battle was fought in a confined space. The commander could see

his whole force. Seeing clearly, his account should have been clear,

although we note that many of these ancient accounts are obscure and

incomplete, and that we have to supplement them. In modern battle

nobody knows what goes on or what has gone on, except from results.

Narrations cannot enter into details of execution.

It is interesting to compare tales of feats of arms, narrated by the

victor (so-called) or the vanquished. It is hard to tell which account

is truthful, if either. Mere assurance may carry weight. Military

politics may dictate a perversion of the facts for disciplinary, moral

or political reasons. (Note Sommo-Sierra.)

It is difficult even to determine losses, the leaders are such

consummate liars. Why is this?

It is bewildering to read a French account and then a foreign account

of the same event, the facts stated are so entirely different. What is

the truth? Only results can reveal it, such results as the losses on

both sides. They are really instructive if they can be gotten at.

I believe that under Turenne there was not existent to the same degree

a national pride which tended to hide unpleasant truths. The troops in

contending armies were often of the same nation.

If national vanity and pride were not so touchy about recent

occurrences, still passionately debated, numerous lessons might be

drawn from our last wars. Who can speak impartially of Waterloo, or

Waterloo so much discussed and with such heat, without being ashamed?

Had Waterloo been won, it would not have profited us. Napoleon

attempted the impossible, which is beyond even genius. After a

terrible fight against English firmness and tenacity, a fight in which

we were not able to subdue them, the Prussians appear. We would have

done no better had they not appeared, but they did, very conveniently

to sustain our pride. They were confronted. Then the rout began. It

did not begin in the troops facing the Prussians but in those facing

the English, who were exhausted perhaps, but not more so than their

enemies. This was the moral effect of an attack on their right, when

they had rather expected reinforcements to appear. The right conformed

to the retrograde movement. And what a movement it was!

Why do not authorities acknowledge facts and try to formulate combat

methods that conform to reality? It would reduce a little the disorder

that bothers men not warned of it. They jump perhaps from the frying

pan into the fire. I have known two colonels, one of them a very brave

man, who said, "Let soldiers alone before the enemy. They know what to

do better than you do." This is a fine statement of French confidence!

That they know better than you what should be done. Especially in a

panic, I suppose!

A long time ago the Prince de Ligne justified battle formations, above

all the famous oblique formation. Napoleon decided the question. All

discussion of formations is pedantry. But there are moral reasons for

the power of the depth formation.

The difference between practice and theory is incredible. A general,

who has given directions a thousand times on the battle field, when

asked for directions, gives this order, "Go there, Colonel." The

colonel, a man of good sense, says, "Will you explain, sir? What point

do you want me to guide on? How far should I extend? Is there anybody

on my right? On my left?" The general says, "Advance on the enemy,

sir. It seems to me that that ought to be enough. What does this

hesitation mean?" But my dear general, what are your orders? An

officer should know where his command is, and the command itself

should know. Space is large. If you do not know where to send your

troops, and how to direct them, to make them understand where they are

to go, to give them guides if necessary, what sort of general are you?

What is our method for occupying a fortified work, or a line? We have

none! Why not adopt that of Marshal Saxe? Ask several generals how

they would do it. They will not know.

There is always mad impatience for results, without considering the

means. A general's ability lies in judging the best moment for attack

and in knowing how to prepare for it. We took Melegnano without

artillery, without maneuver, but at what a price! At Waterloo the

Hougoumont farm held us up all day, cost us dear and disorganized us

into a mad mob, until Napoleon finally sent eight mortars to smash and

burn the chateau. This is what should have been done at the

commencement of the general attack.

A rational and ordered method of combat, or if not ordered, known to

all, is enough to make good troops, if there is discipline be it

understood. The Portuguese infantry in the Spanish War, to whom the

English had taught their method of combat, almost rivalled the English

infantry. To-day who has formulated method? Who has a traditional

method? Ask the generals. No two will agree.

We have a method, a manner rather, that accords with the national

tendency, that of skirmishers in large numbers. But this formation is

nowhere formulated. Before a campaign it is decried. Properly so, for

it degenerates rapidly into a flock of lost sheep. Consequently troops

come to the battle field entirely unused to reality. All the leaders,

all the officers, are confused and unoriented. This goes so far that

often generals are found who have lost their divisions or brigades;

staff officers who have lost their generals and their divisions both;

and, although this is more easily understood, many company officers

who have lost their commands. This is a serious matter, which might

cost us dear in a prolonged war in which the enemy gains experience.

Let us hope that experience will lead us, not to change the principle,

but to modify and form in a practical way our characteristic battle

method of escaping by advancing. The brochure of the Prince of Prussia

shows that, without having fought us, the Prussians understand our

methods.

There are men such as Marshal Bugeaud who are born warriors in

character, mental attitude, intelligence and temperament. They

recommend and show by example, such as Colonel Bugeaud's battles in

1815 at the Hospital bridge, tactics entirely appropriate to their

national and personal characters. Note Wellington and the Duke of York

among the English. But the execution of tactics such as Bugeaud's

requires officers who resemble their commanders, at least in courage

and decisions. All officers are not of such temper. There is need then

of prescribed tactics conforming to the national character, which may

serve to guide an ordinary officer without requiring him to have the

exceptional ability of a Bugeaud. Such prescribed tactics would serve

an officer as the perfectly clear and well defined tactics of the

Roman legion served the legion commander. The officer could not

neglect them without failing in his duty. Of course they will not make

him an exceptional leader. But, except in case of utter incapacity

they will keep him from entirely failing in his task, from making

absurd mistakes. Nor will they prevent officers of Bugeaud's temper

from using their ability. They will on the contrary help them by

putting under their command men prepared for the details of battle,

which will not then come to them as a surprise.

This method need not be as completely dogmatic as the Roman. Our

battle is too varying an affair. But some clearly defined rules,

established by experience, would prevent the gross errors of

inefficients. (Such as causing skirmishers to fall back when the

formed rank fires, and consequently allowing them to carry with them

in their retreat, the rank itself.) They would be useful aids to men

of coolness and decision.

The laying down of such tactics would answer the many who hold that

everything is improvised on the battle field and who find no better

improvisation than to leave the soldier to himself. (See above.)

We should try to exercise some control over our soldiers, who advance

by flight (note the Vendeans) or escape by advancing, as you like. But

if something unexpected surprises them, they flee as precipitately.

Invention is less needed than verification, demonstration and

organization of proper methods. To verify; observe better. To

demonstrate; try out and describe better. To organize, distribute

better, bearing in mind that cohesion means discipline. I do not know

who put things that way; but it is truer than ever in this day of

invention.

With us very few reason or understand reason, very few are cool. Their

effect is negligible in the disorder of the mass; it is lost in

numbers. It follows that we above all need a method of combat, sanely

thought out in advance. It must be based on the fact that we are not

passively obedient instruments, but very nervous and restless people,

who wish to finish things quickly and to know in advance where we are

going. It must be based on the fact that we are very proud people, but

people who would all skulk if we were not seen, and who consequently

must always be seen, and act in the presence of our comrades and of

the officers who supervise us. From this comes the necessity for

organizing the infantry company solidly. It is the infantryman on whom

the battle has the most violent effect, for he is always most exposed;

it is he therefore who must be the most solidly supported. Unity must

be secured by a mutual acquaintanceship of long standing between all

elements.

If you only use combat methods that require leaders without fear, of

high intelligence, full of good sense, of esprit, you will always make

mistakes. Bugeaud's method was the best for him. But it is evident, in

his fight at the Hospital bridge that his battalion commanders were

useless. If he had not been there, all would have been lost. He alone,

omnipresent, was capable of resolute blows that the others could not

execute. His system can be summed up in two phrases; always attack

even when on the defensive; fire and take cover only when not

attacked. His method was rational, considering his mentality and the

existing conditions, but in carrying it into execution he judged his

officers and soldiers by himself and was deceived. No dogmatic

principles can be drawn from his method, nor from any other. Man is

always man. He does not always possess ability and resolution. The

commander must make his choice of methods, depending on his troops and

on himself.

The essential of tactics is: the science of making men fight with

their maximum energy. This alone can give an organization with which

to fight fear. This has always been true.

We must start here and figure mathematically. Mathematics is the

dominant science in war, just as battle is its only purpose. Pride

generally causes refusal to acknowledge the truth that fear of being

vanquished is basic in war. In the mass, pride, vanity, is responsible

for this dissimulation. With the tiny number of absolutely fearless

men, what is responsible is their ignorance of a thing they do not

feel. There is however, no real basis but this, and all real tactics

are based on it. Discipline is a part of tactics, is absolutely at the

base of tactics, as the Romans showed. They excelled the Gauls in

intelligence, but not in bravery.

To start with: take battalions of four companies, four platoons each,

in line or in column. The order of battle may be: two platoons

deployed as skirmishers, two companies in reserve, under command of

the battalion commander. In obtaining a decision destructive action

will come from skirmishers. This action should be directed by

battalion commanders, but such direction is not customary. No effect

will be secured from skirmishers at six hundred paces. They will

never, never, never, be nicely aligned in front of their battalions,

calm and collected, after an advance. They will not, even at

maneuvers. The battalion commander ought to be advanced enough to

direct his skirmishers. The whole battalion, one-half engaged,

one-half ready for any effort, ought to remain under his command,

under his personal direction as far as possible. In the advance the

officers, the soldiers, are content if they are merely directed; but,

when the battle becomes hot, they must see their commander, know him

to be near. It does not matter even if he is without initiative,

incapable of giving an order. His presence creates a belief that

direction exists, that orders exist, and that is enough.

When the skirmishers meet with resistance, they fall back to the

ranks. It is the role of reserves to support and reinforce the line,

and above all, by a swift charge to cut the enemy's line. This then

falls back and the skirmishers go forward again, if the advance is

resumed. The second line should be in the formation, battalions in

line or in column, that hides it best. Cover the infantry troops

before their entry into action; cover them as much as possible and

by any means; take advantage of the terrain; make them lie down. This

is the English method in defense of heights, instanced in Spain and at

Waterloo. Only one bugle to each battalion should sound calls. What

else is there to be provided for?

Many haughty generals would scream protests like eagles if it were

suggested that they take such precautions for second line battalions

or first line troops not committed to action. Yet this is merely a

sane measure to insure good order without the slightest implication of

cowardice. [39]

With breech-loading weapons, the skirmishers on the defensive fire

almost always from a prone position. They are made to rise with

difficulty, either for retreat or for advance. This renders the

defense more tenacious....

CHAPTER II

INFANTRY

1. Masses--Deep Columns.

Study of the effect of columns brings us to the consideration of mass

operations in general. Read this singular argument in favor of attacks

by battalions in close columns: "A column cannot stop instantly

without a command. Suppose your first rank stops at the instant of

shock: the twelve ranks of the battalion, coming up successively,

would come in contact with it, pushing it forward.... Experiments made

have shown that beyond the sixteenth the impulsion of the ranks in

rear has no effect on the front, it is completely taken up by the

fifteen ranks already massed behind the first.... To make the

experiment, march at charging pace and command halt to the front rank

without warning the rest. The ranks will precipitate themselves upon

each other unless they be very attentive, or unless, anticipating the

command, they check themselves unconsciously while marching."

But in a real charge, all your ranks are attentive, restless, anxious

about what is taking place at the front and, if the latter halts, if

the first line stops, there will be a movement to the rear and not to

the front. Take a good battalion, possessed of extraordinary calmness

and coolness, thrown full speed on the enemy, at one hundred and

twenty steps to the minute. To-day it would have to advance under a

fire of five shots a minute! At this last desperate moment if the

front rank stops, it will not be pushed, according to the theory of

successive impulses, it will be upset. The second line will arrive

only to fall over the first and so on. There should be a drill ground

test to see up to what rank this falling of the pasteboard figures

would extend.

Physical impulse is merely a word. If the front rank stops it will let

itself fall and be trampled under foot rather than cede to the

pressure that pushes it forward. Any one experienced in infantry

engagements of to-day knows that is just what happens. This shows the

error of the theory of physical impulse--a theory that continues to

dictate as under the Empire (so strong is routine and prejudice)

attacks in close column. Such attacks are marked by absolute disorder

and lack of leadership. Take a battalion fresh from barracks, in light

marching order; intent only on the maneuver to be executed. It marches

in close column in good order; its subdivisions are full four paces

apart. The non-commissioned officers control the men. But it is true

that if the terrain is slightly accidented, if the guide does not

march with mathematical precision, the battalion in close column

becomes in the twinkling of an eye a flock of sheep. What would happen

to a battalion in such a formation, at one hundred paces from the

enemy? Nobody will ever see such an instance in these days of the

rifle.

If the battalion has marched resolutely, if it is in good order, it is

ten to one that the enemy has already withdrawn without waiting any

longer. But suppose the enemy does not flinch? Then the man of our

days, naked against iron and lead, no longer controls himself. The

instinct of preservation controls him absolutely. There are two ways

of avoiding or diminishing the danger; they are to flee or to throw

one-self upon it. Let us rush upon it. Now, however small the

intervals of space and time that separate us from the enemy, instinct

shows itself. We rush forward, but ... generally, we rush with

prudence, with a tendency to let the most urgent ones, the most

intrepid ones, pass on. It is strange, but true, that the nearer we

approach the enemy, the less we are closed up. Adieu to the theory of

pressure. If the front rank is stopped, those behind fall down rather

than push it. Even if this front rank is pushed, it will itself fall

down rather than advance. There is nothing to wonder at, it is sheer

fact. Any pushing is to the rear. (Battle of Diernstein.)

To-day more than ever flight begins in the rear, which is affected

quite as much as the front.

Mass attacks are incomprehensible. Not one out of ten was ever carried

to completion and none of them could be maintained against

counter-attacks. They can be explained only by the lack of confidence

of the generals in their troops. Napoleon expressly condemns in his

memoirs such attacks. He, therefore, never ordered them. But when good

troops were used up, and his generals believed they could not obtain

from young troops determined attacks in tactical formation, they came

back to the mass formation, which belongs to the infancy of the art,

as a desperate resort.

If you use this method of pressing, of pushing, your force will

disappear as before a magician's wand.

But the enemy does not stand; the moral pressure of danger that

precedes you is too strong for him. Otherwise, those who stood and

aimed even with empty rifles, would never see a charge come up to

them. The first line of the assailant would be sensible of death and

no one would wish to be in the first rank. Therefore, the enemy never

merely stands; because if he does, it is you that flee. This always

does away with the shock. The enemy entertains no smaller anxiety than

yours. When he sees you near, for him also the question is whether to

flee or to advance. Two moral impulses are in conflict.

This is the instinctive reasoning of the officer and soldier, "If

these men wait for me to close with them, it means death. I will kill,

but I will undoubtedly be killed. At the muzzle of the gun-barrel the

bullet can not fail to find its mark. But if I can frighten them, they

will run away. I can shoot them and bayonet in the back. Let us make a

try at it." The trial is made, and one of the two forces, at some

stage of the advance, perhaps only at two paces, makes an about and

gets the bayonet in the back.

Imagination always sees loaded arms and this fancy is catching.

The shock is a mere term. The de Saxe, the Bugeaud theory: "Close with

the bayonet and with fire action at close quarters. That is what kills

people and the victor is the one who kills most," is not founded on

fact. No enemy awaits you if you are determined, and never, never,

never, are two equal determinations opposed to each other. It is well

known to everybody, to all nations, that the French have never met any

one who resisted a bayonet charge.

The English in Spain, marching resolutely in face of the charges of

the French in column, have always defeated them.... The English were

not dismayed at the mass. If Napoleon had recalled the defeat of the

giants of the Armada by the English vessels, he might not have ordered

the use of the d'Erlon column.

Bluecher in his instructions to his troops, recalled that the French

have never held out before the resolute march of the Prussians in

attack column....

Suvaroff used no better tactics. Yet his battalions in Italy drove us

at the point of their bayonets.

Each nation in Europe says: "No one stands his ground before a bayonet

charge made by us." All are right. The French, no more than others,

resist a resolute attack. All are persuaded that their attacks are

irresistable; that an advance will frighten the enemy into flight.

Whether the bayonet be fixed or in the scabbard makes no

difference....

There is an old saying that young troops become uneasy if any one

comes upon them in a tumult and in disorder; the old troops, on

the contrary, see victory therein. At the commencement of a war,

all troops are young. Our impetuosity pushes us to the front like

fools ... the enemy flees. If the war lasts, everybody becomes inured.

The enemy no longer troubles himself when in front of troops charging

in a disordered way, because he knows and feels that they are moved as

much by fear as by determination. Good order alone impresses the enemy

in an attack, for it indicates real determination. That is why it is

necessary to secure good order and retain it to the very last. It is

unwise to take the running step prematurely, because you become a

flock of sheep and leave so many men behind that you will not reach

your objective. The close column is absurd; it turns you in advance

into a flock of sheep, where officers and men are jumbled together

without mutual support. It is then necessary to march as far as

possible in such order as best permits the action of the

non-commissioned officers, the action of unity, every one marching in

front of eye-witnesses, in the open. On the other hand, in closed

columns man marches unobserved and on the slightest pretext he lies

down or remains behind. Therefore, it is best always to keep the

skirmishers in advance or on the flanks, and never to recall them when

in proximity to the enemy. To do so establishes a counter current that

carries away your men. Let your skirmishers alone. They are your lost

children; they will know best how to take care of themselves.

To sum up: there is no shock of infantry on infantry. There is no

physical impulse, no force of mass. There is but a moral impulse. No

one denies that this moral impulse is stronger as one feels better

supported, that it has greater effect on the enemy as it menaces him

with more men. From this it follows that the column is more valuable

for the attack than the deployed order.

It might be concluded from this long statement that a moral pressure,

which always causes flight when a bold attack is made, would not

permit any infantry to hold out against a cavalry charge; never,

indeed, against a determined charge. But infantry must resist when it

is not possible to flee, and until there is complete demoralization,

absolute terror, the infantry appreciates this. Every infantryman

knows it is folly to flee before cavalry when the rifle is infallible

at point-blank, at least from the rider's point of view. It is true

that every really bold charge ought to succeed. But whether man is on

foot or on horseback, he is always man. While on foot he has but

himself to force; on horseback he must force man and beast to march

against the enemy. And mounted, to flee is so easy. (Remark by

Varney).

We have seen then in an infantry mass those in rear are powerless to

push those in front unless the danger is greater in rear. The cavalry

has long understood this. It attacks in a column at double distance

rather than at half-distance, in order to avoid the frightful

confusion of the mass. And yet, the allurement of mathematical

reasoning is such that cavalry officers, especially the Germans, have

seriously proposed attacking infantry by deep masses, so that the

units in rear might give impulse to those in front. They cite the

proverb, "One nail drives the other." What can you say to people who

talk such nonsense? Nothing, except, "Attack us always in this way."

Real bayonet attacks occurred in the Crimean war. (Inkermann). [40]

They were carried out by a small force against a larger one. The power

of mass had no influence in such cases. It was the mass which fell

back, turned tail even before the shock. The troops who made the bold

charge did nothing but strike and fire at backs. These instances show

men unexpectedly finding themselves face to face with the enemy, at a

distance at which a man can close fearlessly without falling out on

the way breathless. They are chance encounters. Man is not yet

demoralized by fire; he must strike or fall back.... Combat at close

quarters does not exist. At close quarters occurs the ancient carnage

when one force strikes the other in the back.

Columns have absolutely but a moral effect. They are threatening

dispositions....

The mass impulse of cavalry has long been discredited. You have given

up forming it in deep ranks although cavalry possesses a speed that

would bring on more of a push upon the front at a halt than the last

ranks of the infantry would bring upon the first. Yet you believe in

the mass action of infantry!

As long as the ancient masses marched forward, they did not lose a man

and no one lay down to avoid the combat. Dash lasted up to the time of

stopping; the run was short in every case. In modern masses, in French

masses especially, the march can be continued, but the mass loses

while marching under fire. Moral pressure, continually exerted during

a long advance, stops one-half of the combatants on the way. To-day,

above all in France, man protests against such use of his life. The

Frenchman wants to fight, to return blow for blow. If he is not

allowed to, this is what happens. It happened to Napoleon's masses.

Let us take Wagram, where his mass was not repulsed. Out of twenty-two

thousand men, three thousand to fifteen hundred reached the position.

Certainly the position was not carried by them, but by the material

and moral effect of a battery of one hundred pieces, cavalry, etc.,

etc. Were the nineteen thousand missing men disabled? No. Seven out of

twenty-two, a third, an enormous proportion may have been hit. What

became of the twelve thousand unaccounted for? They had lain down on

the road, had played dummy in order not to go on to the end. In the

confused mass of a column of deployed battalions, surveillance,

difficult enough in a column at normal distances, is impossible.

Nothing is easier than dropping out through inertia; nothing more

common.

This thing happens to every body of troops marching forward, under

fire, in whatever formation it may be. The number of men falling out

in this way, giving up at the least opportunity, is greater as

formation is less fixed and the surveillance of officers and comrades

more difficult. In a battalion in closed column, this kind of

temporary desertion is enormous; one-half of the men drop out on the

way. The first platoon is mingled with the fourth. They are really a

flock of sheep. No one has control, all being mixed. Even if, in

virtue of the first impulse, the position is carried, the disorder is

so great that if it is counter-attacked by four men, it is lost.

The condition of morale of such masses is fully described in the

battle of Caesar against the Nervii, Marius against the Cimbri. [41]

What better arguments against deep columns could there be than the

denials of Napoleon at St. Helena?

2. Skirmishers--Supports--Reserves--Squares

This is singular. The cavalry has definite tactics. Essentially it

knows how it fights. The infantry does not.

Our infantry no longer has any battle tactics; the initiative of the

soldier rules. The soldiers of the First Empire trusted to the moral

and passive action of masses. To-day, the soldiers object to the

passive action of masses. They fight as skirmishers, or they march to

the front as a flock of sheep of which three-fourths seek cover

enroute, if the fire is heavy. The first method, although better than

the second, is bad unless iron discipline and studied and practical

methods of fighting insure maintaining strong reserves. These should

be in the hands of the leaders and officers for support purposes, to

guard against panics, and to finish by the moral effect of a march on

the enemy, of flank menaces, etc., the destructive action of the

skirmishers.

To-day when the ballistic arm is so deadly, so effective, a unit which

closes up in order to fight is a unit in which morale is weakened.

Maneuver is possible only with good organization; otherwise it is no

more effective than the passive mass or a rabble in an attack.

In ancient combat, the soldier was controlled by the leader in

engagements; now that fighting is open, the soldier cannot be

controlled. Often he cannot even be directed. Consequently it is

necessary to begin an action at the latest possible moment, and to

have the immediate commanders understand what is wanted, what their

objectives are, etc.

In the modern engagement, the infantryman gets from under our control

by scattering, and we say: a soldier's war. Wrong, wrong. To solve

this problem, instead of scattering to the winds, let us increase the

number of rallying points by solidifying the companies. From them come

battalions; from battalions come regiments.

Action in open order was not possible nor evident under Turenne. The

majority of the soldiers that composed the army, were not held near at

hand, in formation. They fought badly. There was a general seeking for

cover. Note the conduct of the Americans in their late war.

The organization of the legion of Marshal Saxe shows the strength of

the tendency toward shock action as opposed to fire action.

The drills, parades and firing at Potsdam were not the tactics of Old

Fritz. Frederick's secret was promptitude and rapidity of movement.

But they were popularly believed to be his means. People were fond of

them, and are yet. The Prussians for all their leaning toward parade,

mathematics, etc., ended by adopting the best methods. The Prussians

of Jena were taken in themselves by Frederick's methods. But since

then they have been the first to strike out in a practical way, while

we, in France, are still laboring at the Potsdam drills.

The greater number of generals who fought in the last wars, under real

battle conditions, ask for skirmishers in large units, well supported.

Our men have such a strong tendency to place themselves in such units

even against the will of their leaders, that they do not fight

otherwise.

A number of respectable authors and military men advocate the use of

skirmishers in large bodies, as being dictated by certain necessities

of war. Ask them to elucidate this mode of action, and you will see

that this talk of skirmishers in large bodies is nothing else but an

euphemism for absolute disorder. An attempt has been made to fit the

theory to the fact. Yet the use of skirmishers in large bodies is

absurd with Frenchmen under fire, when the terrain and the sharpness

of the action cause the initiative and direction to escape from the

commanders, and leave it to the men, to small groups of soldiers.

Arms are for use. The best disposition for material effect in attack

or defense is that which permits the easiest and most deadly use of

arms. This disposition is the scattered thin line. The whole of the

science of combat lies then in the happy, proper combination, of the

open order, scattered to secure destructive effect, and a good

disposition of troops in formation as supports and reserves, so as to

finish by moral effect the action of the advanced troops. The proper

combination varies with the enemy, his morale and the terrain. On the

other hand, the thin line can have good order only with a severe

discipline, a unity which our men attain from pride. Pride exists only

among people who know each other well, who have esprit de corps, and

company spirit. There is a necessity for an organization that renders

unity possible by creating the real individuality of the company.

Self-esteem is unquestionably one of the most powerful motives which

moves our men. They do not wish to pass for cowards in the eyes of

their comrades. If they march forward they want to distinguish

themselves. After every attack, formation (not the formation of the

drill ground but that adopted by those rallying to the chief, those

marching with him,) no longer exists. This is because of the inherent

disorder of every forward march under fire. The bewildered men, even

the officers, have no longer the eyes of their comrades or of their

commander upon them, sustaining them. Self-esteem no longer impels

them, they do not hold out; the least counter-offensive puts them to

rout.

The experience of the evening ought always to serve the day following;

but as the next day is never identical with the evening before, the

counsel of experience can not be applied to the latter. When confused

battalions shot at each other some two hundred paces for some time

with arms inferior to those of our days, flight commenced at the

wings. Therefore, said experience, let us reenforce the wings, and the

battalion was placed between two picked companies. But it was found

that the combat methods had been transformed. The elite companies were

then reassembled into picked corps and the battalion, weaker than

ever, no longer had reenforced wings. Perhaps combat in open order

predominates, and the companies of light infantrymen being, above all,

skirmishers, the battalion again is no longer supported. In our day

the use of deployed battalions as skirmishers is no longer possible;

and one of the essential reasons for picked companies is the

strengthening of the battalion.

The question has been asked; Who saved the French army on the Beresina

and at Hanau? The Guard, it is true. But, outside of the picked corps,

what was the French army then? Droves, not troops. Abnormal times,

abnormal deeds. The Beresina, Hanau, prove nothing to-day.

With the rapid-firing arms of infantry to-day, the advantage belongs

to the defense which is completed by offensive movements carried out

at opportune times.

Fire to-day is four or five times more rapid even if quite as

haphazard as in the days of muzzle loaders. Everybody says that this

renders impossible the charges of cavalry against infantry which has

not been completely thrown into disorder, demoralized. What then must

happen to charges of infantry, which marches while the cavalry

charges?

Attacks in deep masses are no longer seen. They are not wise, and

never were wise. To advance to the attack with a line of battalions in

column, with large intervals and covered by a thick line of

skirmishers, when the artillery has prepared the terrain, is very

well. People with common sense have never done otherwise. But the

thick line of skirmishers is essential. I believe that is the crux of

the matter.

But enough of this. It is simple prudence for the artillery to prepare

the infantry action by a moment's conversation with the artillery of

the enemy infantry. If that infantry is not commanded by an imbecile,

as it sometimes is, it will avoid that particular conversation the

arguments of which would break it up, although they may not be

directed precisely in its direction. All other things being equal,

both infantries suffer the same losses in the artillery duel. The

proportion does not vary, however complete the artillery preparation.

One infantry must always close with another under rapid fire from

troops in position, and such a fire is, to-day more than ever, to the

advantage of the defense. Ten men come towards me; they are at four

hundred meters; with the ancient arm, I have time to kill but two

before they reach me; with rapid fire, I have time to kill four or

five. Morale does not increase with losses. The eight remaining might

reach me in the first case; the five or six remaining will certainly

not in the second.

If distance be taken, the leader can be seen, the file-closers see,

the platoon that follows watches the preceding. Dropping out always

exists, but it is less extensive with an open order, the men running

more risks of being recognized. Stragglers will be fewer as the

companies know each other better, and as the officers and men are more

dependable.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to get the French infantry to make

use of its fire before charging. If it fires, it will not charge,

because it will continue to fire. (Bugeaud's method of firing during

the advance is good.) What is needed, then, is skirmishers, who

deliver the only effective fire, and troops in formation who push the

skirmishers on, in themselves advancing to the attack.

The soldier wants to be occupied, to return shot for shot. Place him

in a position to act immediately, individually. Then, whatever he

does, you have not wholly lost your authority over him.

Again and again and again, at drill, the officers and non-commissioned

officer ought to tell the private: "This is taught you to serve you

under such circumstances." Generals, field officers, ought to tell

officers the same thing. This alone can make an instructed army like

the Roman army. But to-day, who of us can explain page for page, the

use of anything ordered by our tactical regulations except the school

of the skirmisher? "Forward," "retreat," and "by the flank," are the

only practical movements under fire. But the others should be

explained. Explain the position of "carry arms" with the left hand.

Explain the ordinary step. Explain firing at command in the school of

the battalion. It is well enough for the school of the platoon,

because a company can make use thereof, but a battalion never can.

Everything leads to the belief that battle with present arms will be,

in the same space of time, more deadly than with ancient ones. The

trajectory of the projectile reaching further, the rapidity of firing

being four times as great, more men will be put out of commission in

less time. While the arm becomes more deadly, man does not change, his

morale remains capable of certain efforts and the demands upon it

become stronger. Morale is overtaxed; it reaches more rapidly the

maximum of tension which throws the soldier to the front or rear. The

role of commanders is to maintain morale, to direct those movements

which men instinctively execute when heavily engaged and under the

pressure of danger.

Napoleon I said that in battle, the role of skirmishers is the most

fatiguing and most deadly. This means that under the Empire, as at

present, the strongly engaged infantry troops rapidly dissolved into

skirmishers. The action was decided by the moral agency of the troops

not engaged, held in hand, capable of movement in any direction and

acting as a great menace of new danger to the adversary, already

shaken by the destructive action of the skirmishers. The same is true

to-day. But the greater force of fire arms requires, more than ever,

that they be utilized. The role of the skirmisher becomes preeminently

the destructive role; it is forced on every organization seriously

engaged by the greater moral pressure of to-day which causes men to

scatter sooner.

Commanders-in-chief imagine formed battalions firing on the enemy and

do not include the use of skirmishers in drill. This is an error, for

they are necessary in drill and everywhere, etc. The formed rank is

more difficult to utilize than ever. General Leboeuf used a very

practical movement of going into battle, by platoons, which advance to

the battle line in echelon, and can fire, even if they are taken in

the very act of the movement. There is always the same dangerous

tendency toward mass action even for a battalion in maneuver. This is

an error. The principles of maneuver for small units should not be

confused with those for great units. Emperor Napoleon did not

prescribe skirmishers in flat country. But every officer should be

reduced who does not utilize them to some degree.

The role of the skirmisher becomes more and more predominant. He

should be so much the more watched and directed as he is used against

more deadly arms, and, consequently, is more disposed to escape from

all control, from all direction. Yet under such battle conditions

formations are proposed which send skirmishers six hundred paces in

advance of battalions and which give the battalion commander the

mission of watching and directing (with six companies of one hundred

and twenty men) troops spread over a space of three hundred paces by

five hundred, at a minimum. To advance skirmishers six hundred paces

from their battalion and to expect they will remain there is the work

of people who have never observed.

Inasmuch as combat by skirmishers tends to predominate and since it

becomes more difficult with the increase of danger, there has been a

constant effort to bring into the firing line the man who must direct

it. Leaders have been seen to spread an entire battalion in front of

an infantry brigade or division so that the skirmishers, placed under

a single command, might obey a general direction better. This method,

scarcely practicable on the drill-ground, and indicating an absolute

lack of practical sense, marks the tendency. The authors of new drills

go too far in the opposite direction. They give the immediate command

of the skirmishers in each battalion to the battalion commander who

must at the same time lead his skirmishers and his battalion. This

expedient is more practical than the other. It abandons all thought of

an impossible general control and places the special direction in the

right hands. But the leadership is too distant, the battalion

commander has to attend to the participation of his battalion in the

line, or in the ensemble of other battalions of the brigade or

division, and the particular performance of his skirmishers. The more

difficult, confused, the engagement becomes, the more simple and clear

ought to be the roles of each one. Skirmishers are in need of a firmer

hand than ever to direct and maintain them, so that they may do their

part. The battalion commander must be entirely occupied with the role

of skirmishers, or with the role of the line. There should be smaller

battalions, one-half the number in reserve, one-half as skirmisher

battalions. In the latter the men should be employed one-half as

skirmishers and one-half held in reserve. The line of skirmishers will

then gain steadiness.

Let the battalion commander of the troops of the second line entirely

occupy himself with his battalion.

The full battalion of six companies is to-day too unwieldy for one

man. Have battalions of four companies of one hundred men each, which

is certainly quite sufficient considering the power of destruction

which these four companies place in the hands of one man. He will have

difficulty in maintaining and directing these four companies under the

operation of increasingly powerful modern appliances. He will have

difficulty in watching them, in modern combat, with the greater

interval between the men in line that the use of the present arms

necessitates. With a unified battalion of six hundred men, I would do

better against a battalion of one thousand Prussians, than with a

battalion of eight hundred men, two hundred of whom are immediately

taken out of my control.

Skirmishers have a destructive effect; formed troops a moral effect.

Drill ground maneuvers should prepare for actual battle. In such

maneuvers, why, at the decisive moment of an attack, should you

lighten the moral anxiety of the foe by ceasing his destruction, by

calling back your skirmishers? If the enemy keeps his own skirmishers

and marches resolutely behind them, you are lost, for his moral action

upon you is augmented by his destructive action against which you have

kindly disarmed yourself.

Why do you call back your skirmishers? Is it because your skirmishers

hinder the operation of your columns, block bayonet charges? One must

never have been in action to advance such a reason. At the last

moment, at the supreme moment when one or two hundred meters separate

you from the adversary, there is no longer a line. There is a fearless

advance, and your skirmishers are your forlorn hope. Let them charge

on their own account. Let them be passed or pushed forward by the

mass. Do not recall them. Do not order them to execute any maneuver

for they are not capable of any, except perhaps, that of falling back

and establishing a counter-current which might drag you along. In

these moments, everything hangs by a thread. Is it because your

skirmishers would prevent you from delivering fire? Do you, then,

believe in firing, especially in firing under the pressure of

approaching danger, before the enemy? If he is wise, certainly he

marches preceded by skirmishers, who kill men in your ranks and who

have the confidence of a first success, of having seen your

skirmishers disappear before them. These skirmishers will certainly

lie down before your unmasked front. In that formation they easily

cause you losses, and you are subjected to their destructive effect

and to the moral effect of the advance of troops in formation against

you. Your ranks become confused; you do not hold the position. There

is but one way of holding it, that is to advance, and for that, it is

necessary at all costs to avoid firing before moving ahead. Fire

opened, no one advances further.

Do you believe in opening and ceasing fire at the will of the

commander as on the drill ground? The commencement of fire by a

battalion, with the present arms especially, is the beginning of

disorder, the moment where the battalion begins to escape from its

leader. While drilling even, the battalion commanders, after a little

lively drill, after a march, can no longer control the fire.

Do you object that no one ever gets within two hundred meters of the

enemy? That a unit attacking from the front never succeeds? So be it!

Let us attack from the flank. But a flank is always more or less

covered. Men are stationed there, ready for the blow. It will be

necessary to pick off these men.

To-day, more than ever, no rapid, calm firing is possible except

skirmish firing.

The rapidity of firing has reduced six ranks to two ranks. With

reliable troops who have no need of the moral support of a second rank

behind them, one rank suffices to-day. At any rate, it is possible to

await attack in two ranks.

In prescribing fire at command, in seeking to minimize the role of

skirmishers instead of making it predominate, you take sides with the

Germans. We are not fitted for that sort of game. If they adopt fire

at command, it is just one more reason for our finding another method.

We have invented, discovered the skirmisher; he is forced upon us by

our men, our arms, etc. He must be organized.

In fire by rank, in battle, men gather into small groups and become

confused. The more space they have, the less will be the disorder.

Formed in two ranks, each rank should be still thinner. All the shots

of the second line are lost. The men should not touch; they should be

far apart. The second rank in firing from position at a supreme

moment, ought not to be directly behind the first. The men ought to be

echeloned behind the first. There will always be firing from position

on any front. It is necessary to make this firing as effective and as

easy as possible. I do not wish to challenge the experiences of the

target range but I wish to put them to practical use.

It is evident that the present arms are more deadly than the ancient

ones; the morale of the troops will therefore be more severely shaken.

The influence of the leader should be greater over the combatants,

those immediately engaged. If it seems rational, let colonels engage

in action, with the battalions of their regiment in two lines. One

battalion acts as skirmishers; the other battalion waits, formed ready

to aid the first. If you do not wish so to utilize the colonels, put

all the battalions of the regiment in the first line, and eventually

use them as skirmishers. The thing is inevitable; it will be done in

spite of you. Do it yourself at the very first opportunity.

The necessity of replenishing the ammunition supply so quickly used up

by the infantry, requires engaging the infantry by units only, which

can be relieved by other units after the exhaustion of the ammunition

supply. As skirmishers are exhausted quickly, engage entire battalions

as skirmishers, assisted by entire battalions as supports or reserves.

This is a necessary measure to insure good order. Do not throw into

the fight immediately the four companies of the battalion. Up to the

crucial moment, the battalion commander ought to guard against

throwing every one into the fight.

There is a mania, seen in our maneuver camps, for completely covering

a battle front, a defended position, by skirmishers, without the least

interval between the skirmishers of different battalions. What will be

the result? Initially a waste of men and ammunition. Then, difficulty

in replacing them.

Why cover the front everywhere? If you do, then what advantage is

there in being able to see from a great distance? Leave large

intervals between your deployed companies. We are no longer only one

hundred meters from the enemy at the time of firing. Since we are able

to see at a great distance we do not risk having the enemy dash into

these intervals unexpectedly. Your skirmisher companies at large

intervals begin the fight, the killing. While your advance companies

move ahead, the battalion commander follows with his formed companies,

defilading them as much as possible. He lets them march. If the

skirmishers fight at the halt, he supervises them. If the commanding

officer wishes to reenforce his line, if he wants to face an enemy who

attempts to advance into an interval, if he has any motive for doing

it, in a word, he rushes new skirmishers into the interval. Certainly,

these companies have more of the forward impulse, more dash, if dash

is needed, than the skirmishers already in action. If they pass the

first skirmishers, no harm is done. There you have echelons already

formed. The skirmishers engaged, seeing aid in front of them, can be

launched ahead more easily.

Besides, the companies thrown into this interval are a surprise for

the enemy. That is something to be considered, as is the fact that so

long as there is fighting at a halt, intervals in the skirmish lines

are fit places for enemy bullets. Furthermore, these companies remain

in the hands of their leaders. With the present method of reenforcing

skirmishers--I am speaking of the practical method of the battlefield,

not of theory--a company, starting from behind the skirmishers

engaged, without a place in which to deploy, does not find anything

better to do than to mingle with the skirmishers. Here it doubles the

number of men, but in doing so brings disorder, prevents the control

of the commanders and breaks up the regularly constituted groups.

While the closing up of intervals to make places for new arrivals is

good on the drill ground, or good before or after the combat, it never

works during battle.

No prescribed interval will be kept exactly. It will open, it will

close, following the fluctuations of the combat. But the onset, during

which it can be kept, is not the moment of brisk combat; it is the

moment of the engagement, of contact, consequently, of feeling out. It

is essential that there remain space in which to advance. Suppose you

are on a plain, for in a maneuver one starts from the flat terrain. In

extending the new company it will reenforce the wings of the others,

the men naturally supporting the flanks of their comrades. The

individual intervals will lessen in order to make room for the new

company. The company will always have a well determined central group,

a rallying point for the others. If the interval has disappeared there

is always time to employ the emergency method of doubling the ranks in

front; but one must not forget, whatever the course taken, to preserve

good order.

We cannot resist closing intervals between battalions; as if we were

still in the times of the pikemen when, indeed, it was possible to

pass through an interval! To-day, the fighting is done ten times

farther away, and the intervals between battalions are not weak

joints. They are covered by the fire of the skirmishers, as well

covered by fire as the rest of the front, and invisible to the enemy.

Skirmishers and masses are the formations for action of poorly

instructed French troops. With instruction and unity there would be

skirmishers supported and formation in battalion columns at most.

Troops in close order can have only a moral effect, for the attack, or

for a demonstration. If you want to produce a real effect, use

musketry. For this it is necessary to form a single line. Formations

have purely moral effect. Whoever counts on their material, effective

action against reliable, cool troops, is mistaken and is defeated.

Skirmishers alone do damage. Picked shots would do more if properly

employed.

In attacking a position, start the charge at the latest possible

moment, when the leader thinks he can reach the objective not all out

of breath. Until then, it has been possible to march in rank, that is

under the officers, the rank not being the mathematical line, but the

grouping in the hands of the leader, under his eye. With the run comes

confusion. Many stop, the fewer as the run is shorter. They lie down

on the way and will rejoin only if the attack succeeds, if they join

at all. If by running too long the men are obliged to stop in order to

breathe and rest, the dash is broken, shattered. At the advance, very

few will start. There are ten chances to one of seeing the attack

fail, of turning it into a joke, with cries of "Forward with fixed

bayonet," but none advancing, except some brave men who will be killed

uselessly. The attack vanishes finally before the least demonstration

of the foe. An unfortunate shout, a mere nothing, can destroy it.

Absolute rules are foolish, the conduct of every charge being an

affair requiring tact. But so regulate by general rules the conduct of

an infantry charge that those who commence it too far away can

properly be accused of panic. And there is a way. Regulate it as the

cavalry charge is regulated, and have a rearguard in each battalion of

non-commissioned officers, of most reliable officers, in order to

gather together, to follow close upon the charge, at a walk, and to

collect all those who have lain down so as not to march or because

they were out of breath. This rearguard might consist of a small

platoon of picked shots, such as we need in each battalion. The charge

ought to be made at a given distance, else it vanishes, evaporates.

The leader who commences it too soon either has no head, or does not

want to gain his objective.

The infantry of the line, as opposed to elite commands, should not be

kept in support. The least firm, the most impressionable, are thus

sent into the road stained with the blood of the strongest. We place

them, after a moral anxiety of waiting, face to face with the terrible

destruction and mutilation of modern weapons. If antiquity had need of

solid troops as supports, we have a greater need of them. Death in

ancient combat was not as horrible as in the modern battle where the

flesh is mangled, slashed by artillery fire. In ancient combat, except

in defeat, the wounded were few in number. This is the reply to those

who wish to begin an action by chasseurs, zouaves, etc.

He, general or mere captain, who employs every one in the storming of

a position can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organized

counter-attack of four men and a corporal.

In order that we may have real supervision and responsibility in units

from companies to brigades, the supporting troops ought to be of the

same company, the same battalion, the same brigade, as the case may

be. Each brigade ought to have its two lines, each battalion its

skirmishers, etc.

The system of holding out a reserve as long as possible for

independent action when the enemy has used his own, ought to be

applied downwards. Each battalion should have its own, each regiment

its own, firmly maintained.

There is more need than ever to-day, for protecting the supporting

forces, the reserves. The power of destruction increases, the morale

remains the same. The tests of morale, being more violent than

previously, ought to be shorter, because the power of morale has not

increased. The masses, reserves, the second, the first lines, should

be protected and sheltered even more than the skirmishers.

Squares sometimes are broken by cavalry which pursues the skirmishers

into the square. Instead of lying down, they rush blindly to their

refuge which they render untenable and destroy. No square can hold out

against determined troops.... But!

The infantry square is not a thing of mechanics, of mathematical

reasoning; it is a thing of morale. A platoon in four ranks, two

facing the front, two the rear, its flanks guarded by the extreme

files that face to the flank, and conducted, supported by the

non-commissioned officers placed in a fifth rank, in the interior of

the rectangle, powerful in its compactness and its fire, cannot be

dislodged by cavalry. However, this platoon will prefer to form a part

of a large square, it will consider itself stronger, because of

numbers, and indeed it will be, since the feeling of force pervades

this whole force. This feeling is power in war.